Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this complicated country.

We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails to meet people, hear their stories, their poetry, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing.

Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts.

Hi, it's Lynn Rosetta, Casper, and you're listening to The Splendid Table, the show for people who love to eat.

Our program is produced by American Public Media.

Well, today it's our holiday show, and no matter how you market, this is a momentous moment, the darkest time of year, yet the brightest.

Now, we're going to talk partying with British food star Nigella Lawson. Nigella's got a collection of shortcuts and

good counsels for getting people together. Wine is what we cover with Ray Isle, Food and Wine

Magazine's Wine Man, the cheap but good pours for parties, the ideal wine glass, and how the clueless can

gift the connoisseur. Cheese is Steve Jenkins' life work. This week he has what I think of as a

centerpiece cheese, the single example of what to have on the table, a great blue. Then it's

family traditions, as in opening cans and jars,

with commentator Julie Hauserman. She tells her tale of her lowbrow holiday. And as always in the

second half of the show, we're going to be opening the lines for your calls. The numbers 800,

537, 5252.52.

So let's start things rolling with Jane and Michael Stern.

They write the Road Food column in Gourmet magazine.

You know, Lynn, if you don't want to cook for the holidays and you have an enormous family,

there's nothing better than to bring them all to a really good buffet restaurant and let everybody have what they want and how they want it and little bits of it and big bits of it.

We found a place in New Martinsville, West Virginia, called Quinnett's Court,

and it's probably one of the best buffets that we've been to in a long time. And buffets are kind of

have a terrible reputation and deservedly so because there are so many horrendous ones and the chain ones are usually vile.

...